Soufriere, St. Lucia

Today both sit in the darkest corners of the world's spice cabinets. But long ago, everybody in Europe wanted nutmeg. For one, pharmacists insisted various nutmeg potions were the cure to the Black Death. It also cured, they said, just about everything else, including flatulence.

Nobody in Europe knew the exact origin of nutmeg, only that it passed the hands of traders slowly along the silk route, from the unknown all the way to Venice, changing hands, its price rising along the way. But one thing was for sure - it was expensive, very expensive. More expensive than gold, and obviously so. It could cure death!

So when the wars of the crusades started to make that land route even less appealing, it was a natural question to ask - what if we could surpass that land route, what if we could actually sail to, and find the source? What if we could buy directly from the grower? This question would last hundreds of years - a quest for a random spice that became a bloody struggle that would change the modern history of the world, link the new world to the old, put India in Britain's control, and create the world's flagship metropolis - New York City. The race for the nutmeg, and perhaps black pepper, would spur the discovery of the West Indies. But while the discovery would transform these islands, the continuation of the spice race in the east would itself continue to influence the West Indies.

The Banda Islands, in today's Indonesia, were that source. The Spaniards found it, but so did the Portuguese. So did the Dutch. And the English. And they all hated each other. And, suffice it to say, they were willing to fight to the death to maintain or create some sort of monopoly over the little seed from Indonesia.

The battles ensued for hundreds of years. Battleships blasted, ships sank, men died. Many were tortured, executed, hung. In the end, the Dutch nearly had it all. A few scattered English merchants lived among the Dutch masters of the Banda Islands, doing their thing. And there were some Japanese guys too- who were originally hired by the Dutch to attack the English.